Earlier this morning, Microsoft dropped a bomb, announcing the cutting of 1900 jobs from their Xbox and Activision Blizzard teams – nearly a 10th of their gaming division. It seems Blizzard was hit particularly hard by these layoffs, with president Mike Ybarra resigning and their upcoming survival game “Odyssey” being canceled. Well, we may now know a bit more about who was on the chopping block, and it’s not good news for those still holding onto the dream of physically owning their games.
According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, two of the departments hit particularly hard are the teams that brings Xbox games to physical retail and Activision Blizzard customer service, both of which he describes as essentially being “shut down.” Community managers were also a major target in the layoffs.
“Multiple sources tell me that Microsoft is laying off the entire internal customer support team(s) for [Activision Blizzard King] games, save a few. Microsoft will outsource the rest to external companies abroad. ABK was one of the few games pubs with a high-quality internal customer support team.
Microsoft has also shut down departments dedicated to bringing Xbox games to physical retail … which if you’ve seen the digital-only Xbox console leaks … well, you get an idea of where Microsoft is going here.
A huge amount of community managers have also lost their jobs across the company. Less community building for Xbox games in Microsoft’s future it seems like.”
Of course, take this with a grain of salt for now, but Corden is reliable on the specific topic of Microsoft and Xbox (even if he sometimes misses the mark on other subjects). Corden is quick to point out that the Xbox physical release team being shuttered doesn’t necessarily mean boxed games are being dropped right away, the work could still be outsourced, but there are plenty of reasons to suspect Microsoft might want to do away with physical. A number of recent Xbox games, like Hi-Fi Rush and the upcoming Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II are/will be digital only, and Xbox leaks from last year indicate they’re working on an Xbox Series X refresh their PR describes as “adorably all-digital.”
What do you think about all of this? Is Xbox making justifiable moves or have they lost the plot?
